


A Letter From Another Time

by marvellousmongoose



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 02:49:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12160014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marvellousmongoose/pseuds/marvellousmongoose
Summary: Inspired from the game, Life is Strange, this is a letter Chloe in the alternate timeline writes to Max. I'll leave it up to the reader about whether she actually sends it to Max or not. Newly rated T for mild profanity.





	A Letter From Another Time

Dear Max,

How are you? I need details! How’s your folks? How’s Seattle? I got your letter in the mail, you look really good. Don’t let that go to your head but you do. In the photo of you at what looked like a beach, you look young and vibrant and the fact that you shared this part of your life with me gives off a certain zero-fucks-given-about-making-me-feel-bad vibe which I admire, so…thanks, I guess.  
So, what’s new with you in vegetable land? I hear you ask not so directly. Well, I could start listing all the shit that is bothering me most right now. Medical bills, my nagging migraine, the aftertaste of the meds, my lack of privacy, the dread of my next physical, my overly peppy nurse, my cold nose, that bit of damp on the ceiling I haven’t been able to take my eyes off for 5 days straight. But by next week or next year those problems won’t have changed. So, is there really any point? You’ve heard it all before, you must have, my parents definitely have since I never shut up about it. Dad reads the newspapers to me every morning the pain isn’t too bad and he and mom aren’t preoccupied with running around trying anything to give me some relief. I don’t care much about what’s happening in Arcadia Bay but the sound of his voice is soothing, it’s one of the only routines I have that doesn’t get insufferable. Although I did take notice of one recent piece of news, a Blackwell student and daughter of the district attorney, a girl the same age as me, has been missing for months. I can’t remember her name but, just like in your photo, she looks free-spirited, fun-loving and of course, gorgeous. I know it’s not often that missing girls turn up but stranger things have happened, right? Like all those washed up whales and fallen birds we’re getting here. I guess I conserve my optimism for other people.  
Speaking of Blackwell and the ass-hats who run it, my scholarship was terminated. I can’t study chemistry there anymore because a staircase separates me from the lab and ramps haven’t been invented yet. Oh wait, that’s bull, they have. But according to Principal Wells and the sponsors, me and the other wheelchair bound students aren’t worth the few thousand dollars it would cost to build one. Wells had the brilliant idea for us to up and move to another part of Oregon just to be nearer to an institute for disabled students. Interestingly, he didn’t offer to help with the price tag for that either. But I don’t need to stay too pissed at him, he got his karma when he felt my mom’s wrath at the board meeting about it, I only wish I could have seen his face at the time, maybe you could have taken a picture. Mom and dad are okay by the way. Just yesterday mom was applying my makeup, we were trying to have fun, joking around about old times and then, as if she was in a sort of trance, she suddenly put down the cosmetics she was holding and left the room. She returned with puffy eyes and tissues. She blotted the oils from my forehead and leaned down to kiss it, although I’m not a fan of mushy shows of affection, I let her and we both acted like she never left.  
That’s how I would like us to act when you visit me, don’t worry about me guilt tripping you, we’ll get over that fast, I just want to see your face again. I’d get out my best-looking bed covers just for you and we can watch movies, hopefully Blade Runner and you can tell me about all the things you’re looking forward to and the people you’ve met and the places you’ve seen. Sometimes, when it’s so quiet that all I hear is the drip of the IV and the hum of the ventilator, I think about us and the awesome adventures we used to go on. Everything seems brighter when you’re a kid and maybe it was just an illusion but I truly believed we used to rule the world. Take That aren’t my type of band but their song, Rule the World is playing in my head now, and probably by proxy, yours too. I can’t see our garden out the window that well from the angle of my bed but dad told me he put the wooden board with our drawing on it against the fence. He says over time its colour has faded but that’s okay, it’s outside getting enough sunlight for the both of us.  
I promise, I’m usually moodier than this, I regularly bitch to the friends I have in this online chatroom I’m a part of, using my fancy mouth-controlled joystick. I’ve met people there who are from all parts of the world, everyone has their own reasons as to why they prefer to socialise on the internet so that’s what gives us all something in common. We also talk about TV shows, books, skating and gaming. Even my niche punk rock music is tolerated there and although I go AFK at many unpredictable times across the day, they know not to worry about me or draw attention to it. We never take ourselves too seriously, it’s called the ‘Hawt Wheels chat room’ anyway. As for friends closer to home, after you left, before the accident, I became close with a girl called Megan. We bonded over our shared love for electrochemistry and optical isomers. I haven’t seen her in person for a while but I got a postcard from her too and she sends me gifts like teddy bears and snow globes, I think you two would get along, she plays guitar like you. Maybe we could all hang out together one day. But let’s face it, I shouldn’t get too ambitious about the future, day by day, my condition is only getting worse.  
On top of all my more obvious ailments, I have been diagnosed with depression and not to be morbid but I’ve been thinking a lot about death and the finite nature of literally everything in existence. It almost scares me how much I see myself reflected in an upturned fish or a lump of food I am fed, the way I strain to swallow it down only for it to disappear into the void of my chest. The concept of time has become secondary to me, since I never have anything to focus on, I just sleep away hours of my days only to wake up and start screaming as soon as I became aware that I can’t move. You’d think after the thousandth time this happened my conscience would evolve not to injure my throat and embrace the quiescence but no such luck. They say that when one sense is lowered, another heightens. By that logic I should have x-ray vision and super smell powers, but alas my cannula tubes are not part of some badass superhero costume like the ones we use to draw. For my 18th my nurse surprised me by arriving with kittens for me to gawk at. Watching her stroke them was a sort of visual ASMR which I guess was my birthday present but I couldn’t watch them play and waggle for too long because I got jealous. I was jealous of a fucking cat.  
And on that note of awkward humour, I’ll sign off. 

Always your old pirate,  
Chloe


End file.
